Jun 06

Today’s News 6th June 2023

  • "Germany Needs New Elections!" – Right-Populist AfD Party's New Record Polling High Sparks National Political Debate
    “Germany Needs New Elections!” – Right-Populist AfD Party’s New Record Polling High Sparks National Political Debate

    Authored by John Cody via Remix News,

    The AfD is now tied for second place in the country, which has prompted a near meltdown of the country’s political and journalistic class…

    The Alternative for Germany (AfD) continues its steady march higher in the polls, now reaching an all-time high of 19 percent in the latest INSA poll conducted for the Bild newspaper.

    The results have sent yet another “shockwave” through the political and media establishment, with politicians from both the left and the moderate Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) fiercely debating what is behind the rise of the AfD. The party is known for its strict anti-immigration stance, opposition to sanctions on Russia as well as German weapons being sent to Ukraine, and criticism of green energy policies being promoted by the left-liberal ruling government.

    However, the term “shock” being used to describe the party’s rise in the polls is being rejected by the AfD’s Bundestag faction leader, Alice Weidel.

    “Every three days, the Bild has to announce an ‘AfD survey shock.’ That’s not a shock, that’s called democracy. And it shows that people have finally had enough of paternalism, cost increases and asylum chaos. Germany needs new elections!” wrote Weidel.

    Bild has routinely published headlines, along with other newspapers, documenting growing alarm in the German political establishment over what has been the steady rise of the AfD in the polls, especially in the east of Germany. Now, according to the latest INSA poll, nearly one out of five Germans would vote for the party that every major party has vowed never to form a coalition with. A poll from state broadcaster ARD showed, just a week before, that the AfD had reached 18 percent. The new raft of polls showing the AfD hitting new highs shows the party’s growth is no fluke.

    The party is not only at 19 percent, but is actually tied for second place in the country with the ruling SPD. Weidel is now repeatedly calling for new elections, pointing to an ARD poll showing that only 20 percent of Germans are satisfied with the federal government, while 79 percent are dissatisfied.

     “The dwindling approval of the traffic light government shows very clearly that the Germans are no longer willing to accept that their interests are disregarded by politicians,” said Weidel.

    Germany Hits Recession Under Left-Liberal Government

    Germany’s main political parties have now taken turns blaming each other for the continued rise of the AfD. Chancellor Olaf Scholz has labeled the AfD “the bad mood party” and says that when the situation improves in Germany, which he claims it will, AfD’s support will drop.

    Weidel responded that when Scholz describes the AfD as “the bad mood party,” it shows the “complete unworldliness and aloofness” of the SPD leader. She said the AfD has sustainable concepts in the areas of energy, social affairs and migration. 

    “The voters, who are not unsettled by clumsy defamation of the only opposition force, see that too,” she said.

    Meanwhile, the secretary of the SPD parliamentary group, Katja Mast, said: “The AfD was, is and will not be a ‘normal’ party. They want to undermine our democracy and tolerate right-wing extremism. It fights our democracy where it can.” She added: “We must not be driven crazy by the AfD agitators and certainly not allow ourselves to be distracted. All democrats have one task — to take a firm stand against these democracy-destroyers and not adopt their methods.”

    The CDU has offered what has been described as a “simplistic” message, claiming efforts to make the German language “gender-neutral” is driving support for the AfD.

    “With every gendered newscast, a few hundred more votes go to the AfD. Geographical language and identitarian ideology are no longer just quietly rejected by a large majority of the population. They are perceived as intrusive,” wrote CDU leader Friedrich Merz.

    However, the Welt newspaper, which is usually seen as pro-CDU, has rejected this assertion, writing that the country’s mass immigration problem is at the core of AfD’s growth.

    “CDU leader Merz received widespread criticism for his Twitter statement on gender language as driving votes for the AfD. Welt author Thorsten Jungholt does not see gender as the main cause, but migration policy,” wrote the publication.

    Merz has also reiterated that his party will continue to rule out all cooperation with the AfD.

    The CDU, however, is the party responsible for the era of mass immigration under Chancellor Angela Merkel. This reality may provide the party with an incentive to avoid the issue as much as possible, especially when addressing the AfD party, which takes a far more hardline position on immigration than the CDU.

    “A small tip for Merz, Lang, Scholz and company. It is not gender topics,” wrote one user. He then posted two links to articles involving knife crime.

    Merz also appeared on ZDF and ARD and labeled the AfD as “xenophobic” and “anti-Semitic,” with AfD’s Weidel responding that it is “encouraging to see that constant attacks on the AfD” cannot shake the party’s support among the population “and the continuously growing trust in our political work.”

    She added: “No political campaign by the old parties will keep us out of the political debate. We will continue to do everything we can to ensure a safe, prosperous and free Germany.”

    As Remix News reported last week, there are a number of key issues that are likely contributing to the growth of the AfD, and immigration is one of them:

    Germans are becoming increasingly receptive to the AfD’s positions on mass immigration as the left-wing government moves to liberalize immigration laws and naturalize millions of foreigners as German citizens, a move that would greatly benefit these left-wing parties at the polls. Germany has seen record population growth, with nearly 1.5 million migrants arriving in 2022. So far, this number shows no signs of slowing in 2023, as over 160,000 migrants arrived in the country in the first three months of the current year.

    The costs of mass immigration are also slowly becoming hard to ignore, as schools become chaotic and understaffed, housing prices soar due to more competition, and serious crime involving foreigners continues to plague the country. The German government argues that mass immigration is necessary to save the country’s budget and pay for pensions, but figures show that the government plans to spend €36 billion in 2023 alone on migrants for housing, integration, and social benefits, undercutting this argument significantly.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 06/06/2023 – 02:00

  • Twenty Grim Realities Unearthed By Lockdowns
    Twenty Grim Realities Unearthed By Lockdowns

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

    It’s common now to speak of the before times in contrast to the after times. The turning point was of course March 16, 2020, the day of 15 Days to Flatten the Curve, though authoritarian trends predate that. Rights were suddenly broadly throttled, even religious rights. We were told to conduct every aspect of our lives in accordance with the priorities of the bio-medical security state. 

    Very few people anticipated such a shocking development. It was the onset of a new state-conducted war and the enemy was something we could not see and hence could be anywhere. No one has ever doubted the omnipresence of potentially dangerous pathogens but now we were being told that life itself depended entirely on avoidance of them and the only guide going forward would be public-health authorities. 

    Everything changed. Nothing is the same. The trauma is real and lasting. The claim of “15 Days” was revealed to be a ruse. The emergency lasted three years and then some. The people and machinery that did this are still in power. The pick to head the CDC has a long track record of enabling and cheering the lockdowns and all that followed. 

    It’s a helpful exercise to summarize the new things we’ve all discovered in these years. Together they account for why the world seems different and why we all feel and think differently now than we did just a few years ago. 

    Twenty terrible realities unearthed by lockdowns

    1. Surveillance and censorship by Big Tech. The resistance eventually found each other but it took months and years. A censorship regime descended on all major social platforms, technologies designed with the intention of keeping us more connected and expanding the range of opinion we could experience. We did not know it was happening, but we eventually learned of the crackdown, which is why so much of us felt so alone. Others could not hear us and we could not hear them. The regime faces a bold court challenge on many fronts but it still goes on today, with all but Twitter constantly policing their networks in ways that are unpredictably authoritarian. We have ironclad evidence now that they are all captured. 

    2. Power and influence of Big Pharma. It was April 2020 when someone asked me if the goal of the vaccine produced by the pharmaceutical cartel was really behind the lockdowns. The idea would be to terrify us and ruin our lives until we were begging for shots. I thought the whole idea was insane and that the corruption could not possibly reach this deep. I was wrong. Pharma had been at work on a vaccine since January of that year and called in every form of purchased influence to eventually make them mandatory. Now we know that the major regulators are wholly owned and controlled, to the point that necessity, safety, and efficacy don’t really matter. 

    3. Government propaganda by Big Media. It was relentless from day one: the major media proved hardcore partisans of Anthony Fauci. The powers that be could tap the New York Times, National Public Radio, Washington Post, and all the rest, whenever and however they wanted. Later the media was deployed to demonize those who violated lockdowns, refused masks, and resisted the shots. Gone was the idea that “democracy dies in darkness” and the “paper of record” replaced by darkness itself and constant propaganda. They showed no real curiosity of the other side. The Great Barrington Declaration itself began as an effort to educate journalists but only a few dared even show up. Now we get it: the mainstream media too is wholly owned and completely compromised. They already knew what to report and how to report it. Nothing else mattered. 

    4. Corruption of public health. Who in their right minds would have predicted that the CDC and NIH, not to mention the World Health Organization, would be deployed as frontline workers in the imposition of totalitarian control? Some observers perhaps predicted this but implausibly so. But in fact it was these agencies which were responsible for all the absurd protocols from closing hospitals to non-Covid cases, putting up Plexiglas everywhere, keeping schools closed, demonizing repurpose therapeutics, masking toddlers, and forcing shots. They knew no limits to their power. They revealed themselves to be faithful agents of the hegemon. 

    5. Consolidation of industry. Free enterprise is supposed to be free but when workers, industries, and brands were divided between essential and nonessential, where were the howls from Big Business? They weren’t there. They proved willing to put profit ahead of the system of competition. So long as they benefited from the system of consolidation, cartelization, and centralization, they were fine with it. The big-box stores got to wipe out the competition and gain a leg up in industrial standing. Same with remote learning platforms and digital technology. The biggest businesses proved to be the worst enemies of real capitalism and the biggest friends of corporatism. As for arts and music: we know now that the elites consider them dispensable. 

    6. Influence and power of administrative state. The Constitution established three branches of government but lockdowns were not managed by any of them. Instead it was a fourth branch that has grown up over the decades, the permanent class of bureaucrats that no one elected and no one from the public controls. These permanent “experts” were completely unleashed and unhinged with no check on their power, and they cranked out protocols by the hour and enforced them as legislatures, judges, and even presidents and governors stood by powerless and in awe. We know now that there was a coup d’etat on March 13, 2020 that transferred all power to the national security state but we certainly did not know it then. The edict was classified. The administrative state still rules the day. 

    7. Cowardice of intellectuals. The intellectuals are the most free to speak their minds of any group. Indeed that is their job. Instead, they stayed quiet for the most part. This was true of right and left. The pundits and scholars just went along with the most egregious attacks on human rights in this generation if not in all living memory. We employ these people to be independent but they proved themselves to be anything but that. We stood by in shock as even famed civil libertarians looked out at the suffering and said “This is fine.” A whole generation among them is today completely discredited. And by the way, the few who did stand up were called horrible names and often lost their jobs. Others took note of this reality and decided instead to behave by staying quiet or echoing the ruling-class line. 

    8. Pusillanimity of universities. The origin of modern academia is with the sanctuaries from war and pestilence so that great ideas could survive even the worst of times. Most universities – only a handful excepted – completely went along with the regime. They closed their doors. They locked students in their dormitories. They denied paying customers in-person education. Then came the shots. Millions were jabbed unnecessarily and could only refuse on pain of being kicked out of degree programs. They showed a complete lack of principle. Alumni should take note and so should parents who are considering where to send their high school seniors next year. 

    9. Spinelessness of think tanks. The job of these huge nonprofits is to test the boundaries of acceptable opinion and drive the policy and intellectual world in the direction of progress for everyone. They are also supposed to be independent. They don’t depend on tuition or political favor. They can be bold and principled. So where were they? Almost without exception they clammed up or became craven apologists for the lockdown regime. They waited and waited until the coast was clear and then eked out little opinions that had little impact. Were they just being shy? Not likely. The financials tell a different story. They are supported by the very industries that stood to benefit from the egregious policies. Donors who believe in freedom should take note! 

    10. Madness of crowds. We’ve all read the classic book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds but we thought it was a chronicle of the past and probably impossible now. But within an instant, mobs of people fell into medieval-style panics, hunting down non-compliers and hiding from the invisible miasma. They had a mission. They were ferreting out dissidents and ratting out the non-compliers. None of this would have happened otherwise. Just like in the Cultural Revolution of China, these would-be members of the Red Guard became foot soldiers for the state. Mathias Desmet’s book on Mass Formation now stands as a classic explanation of how a population devoid of meaningful lives can turn these sorts of political frenzies into deluded crusades. Most of our friends and neighbors went along. 

    11. Lack of ideological conviction of both right and left. Both right and left betrayed their ideals. The right abandoned its affections for limited government, free enterprise, and the rule of law. And the left turned against its traditional stand for civil liberties, equal freedoms, and free speech. They all became compromised, and they all made up fake rationales for this pathetic situation. Had this all began under a Democrat, the Republicans would have been screaming. Instead they went quiet. Then the Covid regime passed to a Democrat and so they stayed quiet while the Republicans, embarrassed at their previous silence, stayed silent for far too long. Both sides proved ineffective and toothless throughout. 

    12. Sadism of the ruling class. The kids were denied a year or two of school in some locations. People missed medical diagnostics. Weddings and funerals were on Zoom. The aged were forced into desperate loneliness. The poor suffered. People turned to substance abuse and put on added pounds. The working classes were exploited. Small businesses were wrecked. Millions were forced to move and millions more were displaced from their jobs. The ruling class that advertised its wonderful altruism and public spiritedness became callous and completely disregarded all this suffering. Even when the data poured in about suicide ideation and mental illness from loneliness, it made no difference. They could not muster any concern. They changed nothing. The schools stayed closed and the travel restrictions stayed in place. Those who pointed this out were called terrible names. It was a form of grotesque sadism of which we did not know they were capable. 

    13. The real-life problem of massive class inequality. Would any of this have happened 20 years ago when a third of the workforce was not privileged enough to take their work home and pretend to produce from laptops? Doubtful. But by 2020, there had developed an overclass that was completely disconnected from the lives of those who work with their hands for a living. But the overclass didn’t care that they had to face the virus bravely and first. These workers and peasants did not have privileges and apparently they didn’t matter much. When it came time for the shots, the overclass wanted their health care workers, pilots, and delivery people to get them too, all in the interest of purifying society of germs. Huge wealth inequalities turn out to make a big difference in political outcomes, especially when one class is forced to serve the other in lockdowns. 

    14. The cravenness and corruption of public education. A universal education was the proudest achievement of progressives one hundred years ago. We all assumed it was the one thing that would be protected above all else. The kids would never be sacrificed. But then for no good reason, the schools were all closed. The labor unions representing the teachers rather liked their extended paid holiday and tried to make it last as long as possible, as the students got ever further behind in their studies. These are schools for which people paid for with their taxes for many years but no one promised a rebate or any compensation. Homeschooling went from existing under a legal cloud to being suddenly mandatory. And when they opened back up, the kids faced mass silencing with masks. 

    15. Enabling power of central banking to fund it all. From March 12, 2020, and onward, the Federal Reserve deployed every power to serve as a Congressional printing press. It slammed rates back to zero. It eliminated (eliminated!) reserve requirements for banks. It flooded the economy with fresh money, eventually reaching a peak of 26 percent expansion or $6.2 trillion in total. This of course later translated into price inflation that quickly ate away the actual purchasing power of all that free stimulus dispensed by government, thus harming on net both producers and consumers. It was a great head fake, all made possible by the central bank and its powers. Further damage came to the structure of production by a prolongation of low interest rates. 

    16. The shallowness of the faith communities. Where were the churches and synagogues? They closed their doors and kept out the people they had sworn to defend. They canceled holy days and holiday celebrations. They utterly and completely failed to protest. And why? Because they went along with the propaganda that ceasing their ministries was consistent with public health priorities. They went along with the state and media claim that their religions were deeply dangerous to the public. What this means is that they don’t really believe in what they claim to believe. When the opening finally came, they discovered that their congregations had dramatically shrunk. It’s no wonder. And who among them did not go along? It was the supposed crazy and odd ones: the Amish, the estranged Mormons, and the Orthodox Jews. How non-mainstream they are. How marginal! But apparently they were among the only ones whose faith was strong enough to resist the demands of princes. 

    17. The limitations on travel. We didn’t know the government had the power to limit our travel but they did it anyway. First it was internationally. But then it became domestic. For a few months there, it was hard to cross state lines because of the demands that everyone who did so had to quarantine for a fortnight. It was strange because we didn’t know what was and what was not legal nor did we know the enforcement mechanism. It turned out to be a training exercise for what we know now they really want, which is 15-minute cities. Apparently a people on the move are harder to control and corral. We were being acculturated toward a more medieval and tribal existence, staying put so that our masters can keep tabs on us. 

    18. The tolerance for segregation. Vaccine uptake was certainly disproportionate by race and income. Richer and whiter populations went along but some 40 percent of the non-white and poorer communities didn’t trust the jab and refused. That did not stop 5 major cities from imposing vaccine segregation and enforcing it with police power. For a time, major cities were segregated with disparate impact by race. I don’t recall a single article in a major newspaper that pointed this out, much less decried it. So much for public accommodations and so much for enlightenment! Segregation turns out to be just fine so long as it fits with government priorities – same now as it was in the bad old days.  

    19. The goal of a social credit system. It is not paranoia to speculate that all this segregation was really about the creation of a vaccine passport system running off a national base, the one they want very much to implement. And part of this is the real and long-term goal of creating a China-style social credit system that would make your participation in economic and social life contingent on political compliance. The CCP has mastered the art and imposed totalitarian control. We know for sure now that major aspects of the pandemic response were scripted in Beijing and imposed through the influence of China’s ruling class. It is completely reasonable to assume that this is the real goal of vaccine passports and even Central Bank Digital Currency. 

    20. Corporatism as the system under which we live, giving lie to existing ideological systems. For many generations, the great debate has been between capitalism and socialism. All the while, the real goal has passed us by: the institutionalization of an interwar-style corporatist state. This is where property is nominally private and concentrated in only top industries in major sectors but publicly controlled with an eye to political priorities. This is not traditional socialism and it certainly isn’t competitive capitalism. It is a social, economic, and political system designed by the ruling class to serve its interests above all else. Here is the main threat and the existing reality but it is not well understood by either right or left. Not even libertarians seem to get this: they are so attached to the public/private binary that they have blinded themselves to the merger of the two and the ways in which major corporate players are actually driving the advance of statism in their own interests. 

    If you haven’t changed your thinking over the last three years, you are a prophet, indifferent, or asleep. Much has been revealed and much has changed. To meet these challenges, we must do so with our eyes wide open. The greatest threats to human liberty today are not the ones of the past and they elude easy ideological categorization. Further, we have to admit that in many ways the plain human desire to live a fulfilling life in freedom has been subverted. If we want our freedoms back, we need to have a full understanding of the frightening challenges before us. 

    Brownstone’s work and influence in this regard is far beyond any that we’ve told publicly. You would be astonished at the extent of it. The times demand circumspection in overt institutional aggrandizement. 

    We are grateful to our donors for having faith in the power of ideas. We are daily amazed at the ability of passionate and scrupulous writers and intellectuals to make a real difference for the cause of freedom. Please, if you can, join our donor community to keep the momentum going, for the hill is perhaps the steepest we’ve climbed in our lives. We have no “development department” and no corporate or government benefactors: you can make a difference.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 23:40

  • 'Earth Overshoot' Day Is Coming Sooner And Sooner
    ‘Earth Overshoot’ Day Is Coming Sooner And Sooner

    If everyone lived like the inhabitants of the countries highlighted on our map, one Earth would suffice to meet the needs of humanity.

    Infographic: The Countries With No Earth Overshoot Day | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    But, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong points out, as for the lifestyles of the 140 or so remaining countries, the ecological footprint exceeds the planet’s biocapacity, i.e. all the natural resources the Earth can regenerate (and the waste it can absorb) in the space of a year.

    An observation that highlights the pressure exerted by human activities on ecosystems.

    According to calculations by the NGO Global Footprint Network, as of August 2, 2023, humanity will have already consumed all the resources the planet can replenish in one year. Earth Overshoot Day arriving earlier and earlier, moving from as late as December 30 in 1970.

    Infographic: Earth Overshoot Day Is Coming Sooner and Sooner | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Humanity is thus living “on credit”, and it would take 1.75 Earths to meet the needs of the world’s population in 2022. Compared to this global average, the inhabitants of a country like France or Germany have an ecological footprint almost twice as high.

    The concept of Earth Overshoot Day was first conceived by Andrew Simms of the UK think tank New Economics Foundation, which partnered with Global Footprint Network in 2006 to launch the first global Earth Overshoot Day campaign. WWF, the world’s largest conservation organization, has participated in Earth Overshoot Day since 2007.To find out more about the calculations behind Earth Overshoot Day, please click here.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 23:20

  • Ex-Target Executive Reveals The 'One Item' That Sparked Boycott Calls
    Ex-Target Executive Reveals The ‘One Item’ That Sparked Boycott Calls

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A former Target executive claimed that there was one item that sparked widespread boycott calls against the big box chain.

    A worker collects shopping carts in the parking lot of a Target store in Highlands Ranch, Colo., on June 9, 2021. (David Zalubowski/AP Photo)

    Former Target Vice Chairman Gerald Storch said in a Sunday interview with Fox News that a number of retailers, including Target, have sold pro-LGBT merchandise over the past several years and claimed that “everybody carries that stuff.”

    But he noted that Target appeared to go a step further this year by carrying a “tuck swimsuit” that targets transgender people. In mid-May, conservative commentators made note of the swimsuit and claimed that it was being marketed for children, but Target officials pushed back and said that the item was only sold for adults.

    “I’ve never seen a case where one item, that tuck swimsuit, that’s really what made the difference versus the competitors. That’s where the big mistake [was] made,” Storch told the outlet.

    Some pointed out that Target’s website sells a range of LGBT and pro-transgender merchandise, including “pride” clothing targeting infants and small children. Target is also selling children’s books that instruct them on how to use transgender pronouns.

    “I cannot state enough how important is for people to choose not to shop at Target. There has never been a company that has been more pro-transgenderism than Target,” Daily Wire commentator Candace Owens wrote last month.

    Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, meanwhile, criticized the chain for selling the “tuck” swimwear. Target, she said, “decided to willingly partner with this clothing manufacturer to make Pride month gear that includes bathing suits that are quote ‘tuck-friendly’ that have extra material … which no woman needs.”

    In the midst of the backlash, the company last month confirmed that it pulled some items from shelves and moved displays.

    “Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work,” the firm said, without elaborating on the specific threats. “Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior,” it also said.

    Since the boycott against the Minneapolis retailer was launched in mid-May, the company’s stock has declined from nearly $161 per share to about $133.22 per share as of June 2.

    “Target stock has certainly been performing poorly, off 11 percent year to date. So that’s not good, and certainly, this boycott of the whole issue here isn’t helping. It’s very distracting to have that going on in the business. But there are more fundamental concerns with that, with the environment, with the consumer, and with the business here,” Storch noted.

    “The consumer is feeling very stressed, very stressed by the environment, by inflation, and Target is known as the upscale discounter. So it’s not good to be the upscale discounter at a time when the consumer doesn’t have a lot of money to spend. So they’re migrating more to Wal-Mart, and that’s a huge problem,” Storch added.

    The former executive then claimed that the “boycott is part of the problem” but claimed that investors are likely “more concerned with the fundamental business issues” at play. But he noted that Target’s executives “certainly didn’t handle this well, either going in or trying to deal with it on the way out. But I think over time, this is not going to be a big issue for them,” he said.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 23:00

  • No Surprise: FBI Director Playing For Team Biden
    No Surprise: FBI Director Playing For Team Biden

    Authored by Frank Miele via RealClear Wire,

    Some years ago Kenneth Anger wrote a book called “Hollywood Babylon” to expose the dark secrets of the nation’s debauched film capital. It’s about time for an ambitious insider with a strong stomach for deceit and hypocrisy to write a tome called “D.C. Babylon.” One whole chapter could be dedicated to the modern FBI and its labyrinth of corruption and calumny.

    Or perhaps it will take more than one chapter considering the record of the FBI under the direction of James Comey and Christopher Wray. Both men oversaw blatant exercises in election interference on behalf of Democrats, and then either lied about it or pretended it never happened. It’s almost as though they consider themselves to be above the law.

    The refusal of FBI Director Wray last week to honor a congressional subpoena and turn over an unclassified document to the House Oversight Committee should therefore come as no surprise to anyone, even more so since the document in question could potentially end the presidency of Joe Biden.

    The FD-1023 form submitted by a confidential informant contains allegations that Biden, while vice president, accepted bribes from a foreign national in exchange for favorable policy decisions. You would think that the FBI, which spent years chasing down imaginary pee tapes involving President Trump, would have a few minutes to confer with Congress about allegations that the sitting president had engaged in potentially treasonous behavior.

    But no.

    Since that 1023 form would redound significantly against the incumbent Democrat president’s re-election chances, it would be entirely out of character for the FBI to cooperate with the Republican-led investigation. Remember, this is the same FBI that sat on Hunter Biden’s laptop for nearly an entire year prior to the 2020 election, knowing full well that it contained evidence of wrongdoing. Just as the FBI under Wray protected Joe Biden’s son then, it now is working diligently to protect Joe Biden himself as we enter the 2024 election cycle.

    No surprise. After all, as Special Counsel John Durham’s report documented, the FBI under the direction of Comey used its police powers to damage the candidacy of Donald Trump in 2016, and then worked to cripple his presidency by giving weight to Democrat lies and leaking stories damaging to Trump and his family and friends.

    In other words, the modern FBI, under the direction of first Comey and now Wray, is a political weapon aimed at Republicans in the service of Democrats.

    Hopefully, that is becoming plainly apparent to the majority of Americans. Maybe it is. A Rasmussen Reports poll last month showed that 69% of U.S. voters consider the influence-peddling scandal a serious problem for Biden, and more than 50% consider it “very serious.”

    This latest standoff between Wray and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer exposes just how wide the gap is between the views of the American people and the Washington, D.C. elites. In D.C. Babylon, a corrupt FBI is merely business as usual, while for the rest of us, it is the poster child for a two-tiered system of justice. No one can honestly claim that Democrats receive the same level of scrutiny as Republicans by either the Department of Justice or the FBI.

    On the issue of double standards, a couple of points have not been adequately raised about the significance of Wray’s refusal to honor the congressional subpoena.

    First of all, we need to ask why Wray is not being vilified by the mainstream media in the same way that former Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro were when they refused to honor subpoenas from the sham House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot.

    In those cases, both men have faced not just contempt of Congress citations, but criminal prosecution. Bannon, the architect of Trump’s 2016 victory, has already been convicted of criminal contempt and faces four months in prison pending his appeal. Navarro has not yet been tried, but you can bet that the same heavily Democratic jury base in Washington, D.C. will be happy to send Navarro to prison until they can get their hands on their main target, Donald Trump.

    So what is the difference between Bannon and Chris Wray? They both refused to cooperate with a congressional subpoena, but even if Wray is held in contempt by the House, there is no chance he will be prosecuted by the Biden Justice Department, any more than Attorney General Eric Holder was by the Obama Justice Department. Two tiers. Double standard. Call it what you want.

    Secondly, we also should weigh Wray’s authoritarian rejection of congressional subpoena power against the current case being put together against Trump by special prosecutor Jack Smith in the Mar-a-Lago documents scandal. If Clark proceeds with an obstruction case against Trump because he didn’t act quickly enough in responding to the federal subpoena for classified documents, we have every right to ask why Wray gets to explicitly reject his subpoena, but Trump’s home was raided by the FBI while his lawyers were still in the process of negotiating with the Department of Justice.

    But there’s no need to ask when everyone already knows the answer. Election interference, anyone?

    Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His newest book, “What Matters Most: God, Country, Family and Friends,” is available from his Amazon author page. Visit him at HeartlandDiaryUSA.com or follow him on Facebook @HeartlandDiaryUSA or on Twitter or Gettr @HeartlandDiary.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 22:20

  • "Derisking" With China Is Impossible When One Bloc Does Most Of The Producing And Another Most Of The Consuming
    “Derisking” With China Is Impossible When One Bloc Does Most Of The Producing And Another Most Of The Consuming

    By Benjamin Picton, Senior Macro Strategist at Rabobank

    And Now For Something Completely Different

    The debt ceiling fracas is mercifully behind us (at least until 2025), so today we turn our focus away from the USA’s dwindling treasury and towards the more immediate issue of its dwindling dominance of the Western Pacific. Over the weekend US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urged China to re-engage with the United States to “help avoid misunderstandings or miscalculations that may lead to crisis or conflict.” The plea was timely, because there have been a few near-misses in recent days that might have caused more concern in markets in years gone by. The first was the interception of a US surveillance plane by a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea in late May. The Chinese jet crossed in front of the US plane, thereby forcing it to fly through the unstable jet wash (just like Maverick and Goose). A further incident occurred on Saturday when a Chinese warship cut directly in front of a US destroyer, passing within 140 meters of colliding with the US ship.

    Watch the moment a Chinese warship nearly hits US destroyer in Taiwan Strait 👇 pic.twitter.com/WBJkHUZaJG
    — Sky News (@SkyNews) June 5, 2023

    If you’re sensing a theme here, you’re not alone. Western leaders have been promising a “de-risking”, rather than a “de-coupling” of the China relationship in recent months, but the geopolitical risks seem to be increasing, rather than diminishing. When Christine Lagarde warned in April that “we are witnessing the fragmentation of the global economy into competing blocs” she was effectively articulating our long-held house view, which my colleague Michael Every has written about many times.

    So, when Western leaders talk about “de-risking”, what they mean is that they want to ensure that unfriendly powers don’t have them over an economic barrel in the same way that Vladimir Putin did with Europe in early 2022. The goal is to restructure trade and production so that it cannot be used as a weapon in this new era of Great Power competition. This is easier said than done. Especially when we are accustomed to a world where one bloc does most of the producing and another does most of the consuming.

    If the world really does split into competing blocs in the way that Lagarde has warned, we are going to have to see further economic restructuring to make it work. In the meantime, there will be a process of muddling-through, as we continue to sell and buy what we can, while doing our best to re-shore, on-shore and friend-shore, since we are un-sure about the reliability of supply for certain goods and commodities in the years ahead.

    Such a restructuring probably means inflation in the West (that is certainly our view) and deflation in the East. If the West is going to be making more of its own stuff, it is off to a slow start. The ISM manufacturing index last week showed further contraction, continuing a trend that started in November last year. New orders were down, inventories were down, prices paid were WELL down, but the employment index grew strongly. That’s an interesting result given the continued strength in non-farm payrolls, which again surprised to the upside on Friday by reporting that employment rose by 339,000 in May against a forecast of just 195,000. This coincided with a 3-tick increase in the unemployment rate to 3.7%, which meant that there was something for everyone in the numbers. Consequently, the stock market rallied, as did the Dollar, as did 10-year Treasury yields  (up 10 bps on the day), and the front end underperformed as the market awaits new issuance and a clearer signal on the path of the Fed Funds Rate.

    Despite a poor recent run for both the USA and Germany, it would be unfair of me to characterize the malaise in manufacturing as a purely Western phenomenon. China has had its troubles this year, too. Last week’s PMI data presented a mixed picture on this front, with the Federation of Logistics and Purchasing numbers showing a further contraction in May, while the Caixin manufacturing PMI showed an unexpected lift back into expansion. By contrast, the Caixin services index continues to show remarkable strength. The May data was released earlier today and showed a rise in the index to 57.1, which seems to imply that there is still some steam left in the China re-opening trade. There has been speculation for some weeks now that the Chinese government would soon step in to provide broad stimulus to the economy, but these latest Caixin numbers may cool those expectations for the time being.

    Signs of a pickup in China is always welcome in Australia, where the wealth of the nation is largely generated by digging things up to sell to Chinese steel mills before being redeployed into the local housing market. The sustainability of how that national wealth is shared was called into question on Friday when the Fair Work Commission delivered a 5.75% increase in award wages and an 8.6% bump in the national minimum wage. Industry awards cover somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of the Aussie labor market, so the FWC decision has a large bearing on aggregate wage outcomes. This is important, because RBA Governor Lowe had earlier in the week warned politicians that unit labor costs are rising too fast and that expected levels of wages growth were not consistent with meeting the inflation mandate unless sagging productivity growth picked up. Naturally, the implied path of the RBA cash rate is higher post-decision as traders intuited this to mean more inflation pressures and therefore a higher path for the policy rate, just for something completely different!

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 22:00

  • University Of Texas Students Behind Censorship Project Targeting Conservative News Outlets
    University Of Texas Students Behind Censorship Project Targeting Conservative News Outlets

    Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    People walk at the University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas, June 23, 2016. (Jon Herskovitz/Reuters)

    Students at the University of Texas at Austin were found to be responsible for a censorship project that targeted conservative news outlets.

    The Global Disinformation Index’s (GDI) report, which called for the blacklisting of conservative news organizations, was written up by students under the direction of academics working at the University of Texas at Austin’s Global Disinformation Lab (GDIL), The Federalist reported.

    In the disinformation index, the group labeled several conservative media companies as the riskiest.

    The academics in charge of the lab allegedly held an anti-conservative bias in readings of internal communications, along with several other accusations found in the over 1,000 pages of documents reviewed by The Federalist.

    Publicly Funded Organization Involved in News Blacklist

    The Washington Examiner investigative reporter, Gabe Kaminsky, published a Feb. 9 exclusive multi-part series: “Disinformation Inc.”

    Kaminsky revealed that “self-styled ‘disinformation’ tracking organizations,” such as the GDI’s review of the top ten “riskiest American news organizations, were heavily biased against conservative outlets.

    Conservative news outlets such as American Spectator, Newsmax, The Federalist, American Conservative, One America News, The Blaze, Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post, generally had the lowest ratings.

    In contrast, left-leaning news publications like The New York Times and CNN were among the top 10 “least risky” in their rating system.

    GDI sold its lists to marketing organizations, which led to companies pulling advertisements from blacklisted outlets and thus starving them of funding.

    For example, Microsoft’s Xandr used GDI’s blacklist to limit advertising dollars, but has since reportedly dropped its use of the blacklist after the series was published, reported the Washington Examiner.

    The government-funded National Endowment for Democracy was also caught granting GDI over $500,000 between 2020 and 2021, while the State Department’s Global Engagement Center similarly awarded the GDI $100,000 in taxpayer funds in 2021, wrote Kaminsky.

    University of Texas Caught in Media Censorship Controversy

    Meanwhile, GDI released a report with help from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin on Dec. 16, 2022, called “Disinformation Risk Assessment: The Online News Market in the United States.”

    After the report admitting the targeting conservative outlets was published, The Federalist filed a public records request at UT Austin in February, demanding all communications related to GDIL’s work with the GDI on the news media review.

    Despite actions by UT Austin to withhold some of the details of its methodology and research over concerns regarding “confidentiality of trade secrets” and “certain commercial or financial information,” the internal documents that were released revealed many concerning details.

    The files showed that the GDI paid the university to have student researchers, with little training, apply the organization’s screening methodology to rate the various media outlets for its final report, which gave conservative news outlets low ratings.

    GDI sold the university project to GDIL with the goal of influencing the 2022 midterms, The Federalist reported.

    Student researchers were recruited by being informed that their work would be “immediately valuable” since GDI would release it early “to make waves ahead of the midterms” and affect reportage of the 2022 election.

    After the team was finished, UT Austin retained any surplus funds that GDI received for the work, leading critics to question how a state-funded university could profit from such a politically biased program.

    Biden Administration Continues to Fund Censorship Operations

    Additional documents from GDIL further revealed that GDI had an even larger role in censorship activities than had been previously known, according to The Federalist.

    It was revealed by these internal files that GDI and GDIL were also working with the Biden State Department and other prominent public and private organizations to censor conservatives.

    A top lab manager on the project at UT Austin wrote in an internal email communication that GDI worked “with governments, policymakers, social media platforms, and adtech companies to defund disinformation.”

    “They are instrumental in providing data to a bunch of people that I am not sure if I am allowed to talk about,” the lab manager continued, adding GDI had formal and informal relationships with “trust and safety teams at various big platforms, the most recently announced partnership is with Twitch.”

    In addition, an email GDIL received from the Global Engagement Center’s “Academic and Think-Tank Liaison” showed that the State Department had developed a close relationship with a growing number of universities and publicly funded think tanks to promote the censorship of anti-progressive views, according to The Federalist.

    The State Department was exposed for its dealings with the Centre for Information Resilience, whose vice president happens to be former Department of Homeland Security disinformation czar, Nina Jankowicz.

    Jankowicz was pushed out of DHS by the Biden administration last year after a massive backlash caused the termination of the much-criticized censorship program.

    The Epoch Times reached out to the University of Texas at Austin GSIL, GDI, and the State Department for comment.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 21:40

  • China's Military Chief Says Clash With US Would Be "Unbearable Disaster" For World
    China’s Military Chief Says Clash With US Would Be “Unbearable Disaster” For World

    Over the weekend Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu told the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit that any potential future conflict between the United States and China would bring “unbearable disaster for the world”.

    But he said both rival powerful countries should be able to grow together and to avoid confrontation. His words came as the US condemned what it called unsafe and aggressive maneuvers by a Chinese PLA Navy warship in the Taiwan Strait as the American destroyer USS Chung-Hoon conducted a ‘freedom of navigation’ transit on Saturday.

    Alamy Stock Photo

    “It is undeniable that a severe conflict or confrontation between China and the US would be an unbearable disaster for the world,” Li said. 

    While at the conference the top Chinese defense leader refused a sit-down bilateral meeting with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin, but there was at least a cordial handshake.  

    Li, who took up his posts in March, additionally said China “believes that a big power should behave like one, instead of provoking bloc confrontation for self-interest.”

    He urged that Washington “take concrete action” to find common ground with China and to reverse the trend of spiraling ties, which has been on display and intensified ever since the US Chinese ‘spy balloon’ shootdown in early February.

    While not naming the US, Li also said at the defense summit over the weekend that “some country” practices “exceptionalism and double standards and only serves the interests and follows the rules of a small number of countries.”

    He stressed that China remains “strongly opposed to imposing one’s own will on others, placing one’s own interests above those of others and pursuing one’s own security at the expense of others.”

    Currently Washington and Beijing are trading harsh words over the aforementioned Saturday ‘close-call’ between the US and Chinese warships off Taiwan. 

    Gen. Li upon taking his post in March told his country and military that “we must prevent attempts that try to use those freedom of navigation (patrols), that innocent passage, to exercise hegemony of navigation.”

    He remains under US sanctions – something which has served to thwart talks with US defense officials and the Biden administration. China has demanded that the White House first drop the sanctions on him before direct military dialogue can be restored.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 21:20

  • American Airlines Struggles With Pilot Deficit, Grounds 150 Aircraft
    American Airlines Struggles With Pilot Deficit, Grounds 150 Aircraft

    Authored by Enrico Trigoso via The Epooch Times (emphasis ours),

    American Airlines, a leading carrier based in Fort Worth, is currently grappling with a significant challenge. The airline is unable to operate approximately 150 of its regional aircraft due to a persistent shortage of pilots, as revealed by CEO Robert Isom.

    An American Airlines Airbus A319 airplane takes off past the terminal at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., on Jan. 11, 2023. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

    Speaking at the Bernstein 39th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference, Isom stated, “We would deploy properly to markets that aren’t being served. We would do that today. It’s just we don’t have the pilots.”

    This issue arises at a time when the airline industry is witnessing a record demand for travel, particularly during the summer season. However, the capacity to meet this demand is constrained by the lack of pilots, leading to grounded planes and missed opportunities to capitalize on high ticket prices. Isom noted that the situation is more severe than the previous year when the pilot shortage began to significantly affect regional airlines as demand rebounded following the downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Looking ahead, Isom shared that American Airlines expects to acquire more pilots for its regional network over the next 18 to 24 months. Once these pilots are onboard, the grounded aircraft will be reintroduced into service in a manner that is expected to generate favorable unit revenues. He stated, “American anticipates getting more pilots over the next 18 to 24 months for the regional network, and those aircraft would be put back into service in a fashion that is going to produce unit revenues that are very favorable.”

    An American Airlines plane lands on a runway near a parked JetBlue plane at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on July 16, 2020. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    However, the challenge of pilot shortage is not unique to American Airlines. The airline industry as a whole is projected to face a deficit of nearly 80,000 pilots by 2032, as per a report by Oliver Wyman.

    The report said the supply of pilots is being affected by a wave of early retirements that occurred during the pandemic, a mandatory age of retirement of 65, compounded by an older workforce, a “shrinking pool of potential pilots from the military, and a tough value proposition for perspective [sic] candidates outside the military.”

    In an effort to address this issue, American Airlines has recently reached a tentative agreement with its pilots union, the Allied Pilots Association, which represents over 15,000 pilots. The agreement includes a proposed pay raise of about 21 percent for this year, in addition to back-dated raises dating back to 2020. Isom believes that the airline has been efficient in its operations and has seen a significant number of pilots expressing interest in becoming first officers.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 21:00

  • Most Damaging Spy In FBI History, Robert Hanssen, Dies At Colorado Supermax
    Most Damaging Spy In FBI History, Robert Hanssen, Dies At Colorado Supermax

    Robert Hanssen, known as the most damaging spy in FBI history for handing state secrets to the Soviet Union and later the Russian government for more than a decade-and-a-half, was found dead in his prison cell Monday. 

    The 79-year-old died at the ADX Florence complex, the Colorado federal ‘supermax’ prison where he’d been held since pleading guilty to 15 counts of espionage in 2001. He was serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    Career FBI intelligence officer Robert Hanssen, via AP

    “Staff requested emergency medical services and life-saving efforts continued. The inmate was subsequently pronounced dead by outside emergency medical personnel,” a statement by the ADX Florence complex said.

    The press release did not indicate cause of death, but an unnamed source familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that it’s believed he died of natural causes. 

    According to background on the FBI’s website: 

    On February 18, 2001, Hanssen was arrested and charged with committing espionage on behalf of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Hanssen—using the alias “Ramon Garcia” with his Russian handlers—had provided highly classified national security information to the Russians in exchange for more than $1.4 million in cash, bank funds, and diamonds.

    Hanssen’s espionage activities began in 1985. Since he held key counterintelligence positions, he had authorized access to classified information. He used encrypted communications, “dead drops,” and other clandestine methods to provide information to the KGB and its successor agency, the SVR. The information he delivered compromised numerous human sources, counterintelligence techniques, investigations, dozens of classified U.S. government documents, and technical operations of extraordinary importance and value.

    He went undetected for so long given he had extensive training and experience in counterintelligence. The intelligence community knew it had a mole feeding information to the Russians but for years an internal search and investigation came up short, with in some cases innocent veteran intelligence officers coming under suspicion and investigation. 

    ADX Florence Prison

    At one point, Hanssen was even tasked by the FBI to lead an investigation to find the mole, which unbeknownst to the FBI was actually himself. A 2007 movie called “Breach” captured the story and his eventually being caught in a sting operation. 

    The FBI website details further of how the intelligence community began to figure out the mole was Hanssen:

    A turning point came in 2000, when the FBI and CIA were able to secure original Russian documentation of an American spy who appeared to be Hanssen. The ensuing investigation confirmed this suspicion.

    Hanssen was set to retire, so investigators had to move fast. Their goal was to catch Hanssen “red handed” in espionage.

    An FBI sting on February 18, 2001 caught Hanssen in the act of making a “dead drop” at Foxstone Park in Tysons Corner, Virginia.

    According to the FBI, “Hanssen parked on a residential street and walked down a wooded path to a footbridge with the classified materials wrapped in a plastic bag.” And then, “As Hanssen walked back to his car, the arrest team rushed up and took him into custody.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 20:40

  • Elon Musk Says Target Will Face Shareholder Lawsuits Amid Trans Controversy
    Elon Musk Says Target Will Face Shareholder Lawsuits Amid Trans Controversy

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    As Target’s stock price has taken a beating amid conservative backlash over the company’s decision to sell LGBT-themed items and clothing, Twitter CEO Elon Musk said Friday that it’s just a matter of time before Target faces lawsuits for “destruction of shareholder value.”

    Elon Musk, founder and chief engineer of SpaceX, speaks at the 2020 Satellite Conference and Exhibition in Washington on March 9, 2020. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

    Musk made the remarks in response to a tweet by conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who posted about JPMorgan downgrading Target’s stock after suffering its longest losing streak in decades.

    Over the past month or so, Target’s stock dropped by double digits amid conservative calls for a boycott against the chain in connection to its decision to sell LGBT-themed apparel, including onesies for children and books instructing kids about the use of transgender pronouns.

    Several days ago, JPMorgan downgraded Target Corporation’s stock from overweight to neutral, with the Wall Street bank citing “too many concerns” with the retail giant.

    “We believe this share loss could accelerate into back to school and linger into holiday given consumer pressures and recent company controversies,” wrote JPMorgan analyst Christopher Horvers, per MarketWatch. “This could turn [Target’s] traffic negative after an impressive run of 12 consecutive positive quarters.”

    Musk responded to Kirk’s tweet about Target’s stock downgrade by predicting that the company would face shareholder lawsuits.

    “Won’t be long before there are class-action lawsuits by shareholders against the company and board of directors for destruction of shareholder value,” Musk wrote.

    Kirk replied by saying that shareholders should organize to get politics out of the “hyperpolitical” corporations of today.

    A Target spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    A worker collects shopping carts in the parking lot of a Target store in Highlands Ranch, Colo., on June 9, 2021. (David Zalubowski/AP Photo)

    ‘Continuing Commitment’

    While Target said a week ago that it had removed some items that sparked the greatest controversy, it did not go into detail about which ones. The company also reiterated its “continuing commitment to the LGBTQIA+ community and standing with them as we celebrate Pride Month and throughout the year.”

    “Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work,” Target said in a statement. “Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”

    Target is among major brands—including Bud Light—that are facing backlash for supporting LGBT causes.

    Several other companies, including PetSmart, Chick-fil-A, and Walmart, are also now facing boycott calls due to their endorsement of the LGBT agenda.

    Experts say a big factor encouraging brands to promote transgender ideologies is an attempt to score points on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards.

    ‘Just Good Business Decisions’?

    Target CEO Brian Cornell was asked about the backlash against “woke” companies during Fortune’s “Leadership Next” podcast several weeks ago.

    “I think those are just good business decisions, and it’s the right thing for society, and it’s the great thing for our brand,” Cornell said.

    “The things we’ve done from a DE&I [diversity, equity, and inclusion] standpoint, it’s adding value,” Cornell said, referring to policies that a number of prominent conservatives have panned as leftist and “woke.”

    “It’s helping us drive sales, it’s building greater engagement with both our teams and our guests, and those are just the right things for our business today,” Cornell continued.

    “When we think about purpose at Target, it’s really about helping all the families, and that ‘all’ word is really important,” he said.

    The Target chief added that the focus on “diversity and inclusion and equity has fueled much of our growth over the last nine years.”

    Target, which is one of the biggest retailers in the United States, has long faced boycott calls.

    In 2016, calls for a boycott were sparked when Target released a policy that allowed men who identify as women to use women’s bathrooms.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 20:20

  • Here Are Goldman's Top Takeaways From Its Semiconductor Conference As Tech Execs Focused On AI 
    Here Are Goldman’s Top Takeaways From Its Semiconductor Conference As Tech Execs Focused On AI 

    Last week, Goldman Sachs hosted the 2nd Annual Global Semiconductor Conference in New York, where they gained valuable insight into where the industry is headed from management and IR teams from the semiconductor device, equipment, and materials companies. Conversations were also held with Todd Fisher, the person the Biden-Harris Administration appointed to lead the CHIPS for America offices. 

    Goldman’s Toshiya Hari said there was a lot of focus on artificial intelligence from participants, including Intel, Marvell, Micron, Renesas, and Advantest. Management teams of these companies overwhelmingly believe AI will be ‘long-term’ growth drivers, though some said it might take time for the growth to be realized.  

    There were signs from Intel and Micron that the PC bust cycle might be stabilizing. As well as signs the memory industry is finally “bottoming.” 

    Fisher provided more clarity on the Biden administration’s long-term goals of building out America’s domestic chip production while pointing out there is “no bias either way in the treatment of a domestic or international applicant as the goal of the program is to encourage companies to invest in R&D and for IP to reside in the United States.” 

    Here’s Goldman’s Hari summary of the top ten takeaways from the chip conference: 

    1) Focus on AI: 

    There was an immense focus on AI throughout our conference with Intel, Marvell, Micron, Renesas, and Advantest, in particular, speaking to the near- and long-term opportunity set associated with this growing theme. Intel highlighted how Sapphire Rapids (i.e. 4th generation Xeon scalable processors based on Intel 7 technology) is well-suited for AI workloads (note Nvidia selected Sapphire Rapids as the standard server CPU in its DGX H100 system last year), while management also shared that its pipeline for Gaudi (i.e. Habana’s training and inference accelerator) had increased ~2.5x in the preceding 90-day period. Marvell reiterated what it had disclosed the prior week on its earnings call — namely, that optical DSPs and custom compute processors are expected to lead to a more than doubling of AI revenue in FY2024 and FY2025 from a base of ~$200mn in FY2023. Micron stated that although AI revenue is difficult to quantify and it currently makes up a small percentage of total revenue, they see AI as a significant long-term growth driver given the implications for content growth. While there is a range, Micron believes AI servers can embed 8x the amount of DRAM and 3x the amount of NAND compared to a traditional server. Renesas highlighted the medium- to long-term growth potential in MCUs, particularly at the edge (i.e. multi-billion dollar SAM), their recent acquisition of Reality AI, a predictive AI company, that will augment its MCU capabilities particularly across industrial applications (e.g. HVAC), as well as its ongoing investments in CXL memory accelerators. For Advantest, while HPC/AI-related demand is unlikely to move the needle on CY2023 tester demand, per management, the company sees HPC/AI as a medium- to long-term growth driver given a) the expected increase in transistor count, b) the potential increase in test intensity as the industry accelerates the adoption of advanced packaging, and c) the company’s confidence in defending its dominant share position in this market segment.

    2) Signs of stabilization in the PC market: 

    Signs of stabilization are emerging in the PC market with Intel raising the mid-point of its 2Q revenue outlook from $12.0bn to $12.25bn (+5% qoq, -20% yoy) based on strong linearity in Client Computing (i.e. PC) and Data Center and AI so far in the quarter and Micron reiterating its expectation for customer inventory in PCs (and smartphones) to be at or near normal levels exiting the CY2Q. While sell-in of components in CY2H and beyond will depend on PC sell-through, we expect, at a minimum, the under-shipping of components relative to end-demand that has persisted over the past ~9 months to subside soon.

    3) Memory fundamentals bottoming: 

    While Micron’s disclosure that the recent ruling by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) could have a high-single-digit (%) impact on total revenue, up from the low- to high-single-digit (%) range provided by management on 5/22, weighed on the stock last week, our constructive view on the Memory cycle predicated on demand stabilization and supply-side discipline (i.e. capex and production cuts) remains intact. Between DRAM and NAND, we continue to expect a sharper and more sustained recovery in DRAM given relative inventory levels (i.e. DRAM NAND). In NAND, we fear that suppliers with relatively weak balance sheets could re-accelerate bit production once pricing has recovered to above cash cost.

    4) Benign pricing in analog/MCU/power semis:

    In broad-based MCU, analog and power semis, Microchip and Infineon, in contrast to growing investor skepticism, pointed to stable industry trends. Microchip reaffirmed its June quarter (+2-3% qoq) and September quarter (unlikely to be down qoq) revenue outlook, while Infineon reiterated its confidence in its auto semis growth outlook with underlying unit demand still solid in Europe/US. On pricing, Infineon stated that pricing remains resilient across all divisions, and is even increasing in certain pockets where demand is strong. Similarly, Microchip spoke to stable near-term pricing and shared its view that industry pricing is likely to be less deflationary going forward than in the past given higher capital intensity across mature process nodes.

    5) TEL presents bullish CY2024 WFE market outlook: 

    While the majority of Wafer Fab Equipment (WFE) suppliers have yet to comment on CY2024, Tokyo Electron (TEL) reiterated its view that the WFE market in CY2024 could recover to a level similar to CY2022 (which implies a ~25% yoy increase), driven by a data center upgrade cycle and a recovery in Memory spending following this year’s sharp inventory adjustment. Note that our own expectations for the WFE market in CY2024 are more subdued at +7% yoy based on a double-digit yoy increase in Memory and a stable outlook in advanced Logic/Foundry, partially offset by a decline across mature/specialty nodes.

    6) Gate-All-Around to drive advanced Logic/Foundry spend: 

    Applied Materials, ASML, ASM International, and Tokyo Electron all highlighted Gate-All-Around (GAA) as a potential driver of higher spending in advanced Logic/Foundry over the coming several years. ASM International highlighted that it will begin to receive GAA orders in 4Q23 and that it expects growth in its Epitaxy business to be catalyzed by the transition to GAA. Applied Materials, on its recent earnings call, stated that the GAA inflection will create an incremental opportunity of ~$1bn for every 100k wafer starts of capacity and that it expects to gain 5% of transistor market share in the transition from FinFET to GAA, particularly in product areas including Epitaxy and Selective Removal, in our view.

    7) Constructive long-term outlook on mature node capital investments:

     Applied Materials reiterated that its ICAPS (IoT, Communications, Automotive, Power and Sensors) business is on track to grow in CY2023 at a faster pace than in CY2022 given strength across China, Japan, Europe, and the US While we expect capital spending across mature/specialty nodes to remain cyclical, we subscribe to the view that capital intensity in the trailing-edge will stay elevated vis-a-vis the past 5-10 years as the used equipment market the IDMs and foundry suppliers used to leverage has since declined in size. Note TEL stated that they expect WFE demand associated with mature process nodes could reach ~$50bn by CY2030, up from ~$30bn in CY2023, while ASML addressed skepticism surrounding spending on mature/specialty nodes in China by sharing that ordered lithography tools are being installed in cleanrooms (rather than only being ordered for strategic/geopolitical purposes and stored).

    8) Industry wafer starts to recover in 2H: 

    Entegris reaffirmed its CY2023 market outlook — specifically, a mid-teens (%) yoy decline in MSI and a ~20% yoy decline in industry capex. That said, the company expects a modest recovery in 2H23 driven by advanced Logic/Foundry on growth in AI and the introduction of new consumer electronics products. Management remains confident in its ability to deliver consistent outgrowth — 6-7% points this year — as customers’ execute to their respective technology transitions (e.g. Gate-All-Around) and in turn consume more of Entegris’ products on a per-wafer basis.

    9) Near-term caution on wafer volumes but ASP outlook intact: 

    SUMCO shared a relatively cautious outlook for its silicon wafer business as the ongoing inventory correction in Memory is likely to drive a hoh decline in shipments in 2H. On a positive note, management stated that wafer pricing continues to track largely in-line with what had been agreed in LTAs and that the current expectation is for wafer pricing to increase ~10% yoy in CY2024.

    10) CHIPS Act: 

    from the CHIPS for America program, we hosted Todd Fisher who had spent 30 years in the finance and investment industry, including nearly 25 years at KKR & Co. Inc., prior to joining the Department of Commerce in 2021. Related to the CHIPS Act, Mr. Fisher shared the US Government’s long-term goals, including a) at a high level, the pursuit of economic and national security, and at a micro level, b) the construction of at least two new leading-edge Logic/Foundry eco-systems in the US by the end of the decade, as well as c) the creation of a resilient supply chain as it pertains to mature process nodes and specialty technologies. Interestingly, Mr. Fisher noted that there is no bias either way in treatment of a domestic or international applicant as the goal of the program is to encourage companies to invest in R&D and for IP to reside in the United States. In his concluding remarks, Mr. Fisher summarized the six criteria under which applications are evaluated: 1) impact to economic and national security (the most significant), 2) financial viability, 3) commercial viability (including potential long-term implications for industry supply/demand), 4) technical feasibility, 5) workforce, and 6) broader impacts (with a significant discussion around R&D).

    The explosion of interest in AI might be a growth driver of the semiconductor sector in two ways: building demand for innovative technologies and increasing chip demand. 

    More details in the full Goldman note are available to pro subscribers in the usual place.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 20:00

  • When Your Own Government Confirms It Paid Censors To Silence You…
    When Your Own Government Confirms It Paid Censors To Silence You…

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    If you’ve been around for very long, you know this website has suffered repeated hits for our content. We’ve been defunded, we’ve been hit by algorithmic changes that make it harder for people to find us, and we’ve been classified as a “disinformation” site. All of this has happened despite the fact we offer factual coverage and often use mainstream sources that are not targeted by censors.

    While I’ve had my suspicions since the attacks first began, imagine the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I recently read an expose by the Washington Examiner in which the United States government readily admitted giving funding to the very business that abruptly defunded my website back in 2021.

    The US State Department “stands by” grant to fund censorship

    It’s hard to believe that I’m writing this about the government of the United States of America, but here we are in 2023 with our own government striving to make at least half the country out to be terrorists and second-class citizens. An exclusive report by the Washington Examiner states:

    The State Department “stands by” its widely scrutinized grant to a group the Washington Examiner revealed is blacklisting conservative media outlets, according to a letter to Congress.

    Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) put the State Department’s Global Engagement Center on blast in a March letter to the agency and demanded an investigation into its $100,000 grant in 2021 to the Global Disinformation Index, which has fed conservative website blacklists to advertisers to defund disfavored speech. The agency issued a response to the congressman on Friday, telling him in a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner that it has no regrets over the taxpayer-backed award…

    …As the Washington Examiner has reported since February 2022, the GDI was awarded $100,000 through the government’s U.S.-Paris Tech Challenge, which sought to “advance the development of promising and innovative technologies against disinformation and propaganda across the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom,” according to the Atlantic Council, a think tank that partnered for the challenge.

    But it wasn’t just a grant of $100,000. At least $330,000 was received from US-State-Department-related entities, and it’s possible the price tag goes even higher. In another article, the Washington Examiner reported these ties:

    The first State Department-backed group that has supported GDI is the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit group that receives nearly all of its funding from annual congressional appropriations.

    According to financial statements, the NED received over $300 million from the State Department in 2021. Critics have argued that the endowment, which Congress authorized in 1983, is essentially a government grantmaking body despite its legal status as a private entity.

    In 2020, the NED granted $230,000 to the AN Foundation, GDI’s group that also goes by the Disinformation Index Foundation, documents show.

    The grant was to “deepen understanding of the challenges to information integrity in the digital space” in Africa , Asia, and other foreign countries, to “assess disinformation risks of local online media ecosystems,” according to the NED, which noted that GDI would compile “risk ratings” for ad companies and others to assess “risks that arise from funding disinformation.”

    And that’s not all – further government funding of censorship entities is discussed in the article. Potentially there are millions of dollars granted to organizations that in turn fund censorship groups.

    Our own government is wiping its feet on the first amendment as it “stands by” grants that go after those who dissent.

    What is GDI?

    GDI (Global Disinformation Index) is the group that directly caused The Organic Prepper website to lose a valuable advertising partnership that had been in place for years with no complaints whatsoever. There was no notice – the partnership with AdThrive was severed, and we were offered no recourse to try and maintain the relationship.

    This was a loss of thousands of dollars of revenue monthly – revenue that allowed us to publish and offer our products at low or no cost to the readers.

    Again from the Examiner:

    GDI compiles a “dynamic exclusion list” that it feeds to corporate entities, such as the Microsoft -owned advertising company Xandr, emails show. Xandr and other companies are, in turn, declining to place ads on websites that GDI flags as peddling disinformation.

    The Washington Examinerrevealed on Thursday that it is on this exclusion list. The list includes at least 2,000 websites and has “had a significant impact on the advertising revenue that has gone to those sites,” said GDI’s CEO Clare Melford on a March 2022 podcast.

    We seem to be on the wrong side of GDI. To be honest, that’s not something that’s cause for shame. I’m glad that a group that believes in silencing anyone who doesn’t just meekly go with the status quo also believes that I’m not one of them.

    Here’s what we were told at the time we were defunded.

    When we were defunded, it wasn’t really a surprise. We’d received the following announcement two weeks before.

    The Global Disinformation Index (GDI) helps advertising companies assess a website’s risk of disinformation and provide a trusted and neutral assessment so brands and ad companies can make informed decisions and avoid funding this content.

    We recently became the first ad management service to partner with The Global Disinformation Index to introduce new vetting processes for all sites in the AdThrive community, so that advertisers can spend confidently and be assured they are NOT funding disinformation!

    This allows us to pinpoint potentially harmful topics on the site (for example, disinformation, hate speech, racism, derogatory content, and other topics or themes that are not brand safe) and research the content in a more thorough way than before.

    We’re also using this system to establish new brand safety processes to periodically review our existing partnerships to ensure our community remains as high-quality as possible. (source)

    It was the first time I’d heard of GDI, but I was instantly suspicious.

    Many of us ” voiced concern about this high-level censorship of our websites. After all, we’d been working together for years, and it was downright insulting to be “audited” for truthfulness from some outside entity. Our attempts to discuss this fell upon deaf ears. Their decision to align with censors had been made.

    Soon, I received the following email.

    And that was it.

    Just like that, I lost $56,000 of revenue per year, the revenue that had juuuuussst covered my then-operating expenses of $55,000 per year.

    The real-world effects of this

    It’s been a real struggle to keep afloat. A once-thriving business is now going month-to-month in an effort to pay the massive overhead required to keep us online. That overhead has only gone up with both inflation and attacks on the sites at a server level. Those attacks have been costly to repair and prevent with added security measures. And while suing them would be great, these costs and the halt to my flow of income mean that I could not afford to take legal action, despite clear evidence of defamatory and malicious behavior. I tried, initially, and I quickly went through my entire savings account and never even got to court.

    I’ve had to let long-time employees go, and we’re running on a skeleton crew now. We’ve had to dial back how often we post, and it’s a constant cycle of creating products and marketing them to keep things going.

    We cannot keep operating without your help. So this weekend, we’re offering two ways to support the site – a site that the Biden administration desperately wants to see go away.

    We will keep sharing the information we believe is important for as long as possible. We will keep offering our products on a sliding scale to help our readers who can’t afford to pay more. We are committed to exposing manipulation and corruption and to helping you get prepared and to recognize the threats.

    We won’t go down without a fight, and we sincerely appreciate your efforts to help us.

    What does it mean when you’re attacked by your own government?

    Being attacked and censored by my own government is a very difficult thing to stomach.  Not only is it painfully disappointing, it’s also scary.

    You look at other writers who have fun afoul of the administration and the attacks they are suffering, like Matt Taibbi’s run-in with the weaponized IRS or Tucker Carlson losing his job under mysterious circumstances (but most likely for exposing the events of January 6th using video footage.)

    Meanwhile, the United Nations talks about standing up to those who would silence journalists.

    On November 2, the United Nations observed its ninth annual International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists. The United Nations established this day in no small part because of the essential role journalists play in healthy and vibrant democracies. Independent reporters hold the powerful accountable for their conduct, their policies, and the results, and help their fellow citizens make informed choices that are untainted by propaganda or misinformation. When reporters are silenced, people are robbed of the information they need to make decisions that affect their lives.

    They also note that fifteen American reporters have been murdered since the 90s as a direct result of their investigations.

    While the United States may be considered a relatively safe place for journalists, it is not immune from such violence. Jeff German, a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter covering politics and corruption, was found stabbed to death near his home on September 2. A local government official who was the subject of recent reporting by German was arrested and charged with murdering him days later. German was the 15th journalist to have been killed in the United States since 1992; some have died in particularly infamous incidents, like the four who were killed in a mass shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, in 2018.

    But the journalists they have in mind aren’t alternative journalists and bloggers in America. These are legacy and local media who they discuss.

    We, however, know the risk we are taking.

    You have to wonder how much worse it will get now that the government admits without shame or remorse that it is funding the organizations which are going after us.

    *  *  *

    Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceand Survival.com

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 19:40

  • El Niño Fears Surge Among CEOs As Economy In Crosshairs Of Extreme Weather
    El Niño Fears Surge Among CEOs As Economy In Crosshairs Of Extreme Weather

    As we have highlighted, the global economic impact of El Niño could be in the trillions of dollars over the next several years. American business leaders are bracing for weather disruptions as their discussion on recent earnings calls about the damaging weather phenomenon surges to multi-year highs. 

    Bloomberg data shows executives speaking about El Niño has surged to the highest levels since 2019. There is growing concern among some corporate America that extreme weather will dent future earnings. 

    News stories referencing El Niño have surged to highs not seen since October 2015. 

    Christopher Callahan, an Earth system scientist at Dartmouth College, who co-authored the report “Persistent effect of El Niño on global economic growth,” recently warned: 

    “There’s an economic legacy of El Niño in GDP [gross domestic product] growth.” 

    Last month, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California identified a “potential precursor” of El Niño conditions after one of its satellites spotted a massive wave of warm water moving across the equatorial Pacific.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    As of May 11, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said the probability of El Niño forming is greater than 90% over the next few months. 

    Recall we wrote, “El Nino Watch Initiated As Ag-Industry In Crosshairs.” 

    And maybe CEOs have found the next scapegoat to blame when earnings take a dive… 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 19:20

  • 800 Years Of History In One Paragraph
    800 Years Of History In One Paragraph

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via DailyReckoning.com,

    Perhaps you recall the immensely popular series Downton Abbey, depicting British aristocratic life in a mighty estate, robust at first but fading as the seasons progress.

    At one point, the dowager countess Violet Crawley summarizes 800 years of British history in a paragraph. It’s the kind of history that is routinely denied to students and has been for decades.

    But it’s a good lesson in political science. She says:

    For years I’ve watched governments take control of our lives, and their argument is always the same: fewer costs and greater efficiency. But the result is the same too: less control by the people and more control by the state, until the individual’s own wishes count for nothing. That is what I consider my duty to resist.

    “By wielding your unelected power?” asks Lady Rosamund Painswick.

    Ignoring the swipe, the dowager answers:

    “See, the point of a so-called great family is to protect our freedoms. That is why the barons made King John sign the Magna Carta.”

    Surprised, her distant cousin Isobel responds:

    “I do see that your argument was more honorable than I’d appreciated.”

    And her daughter-in-law Cora, an American who doesn’t understand what’s at stake, answers too: “Mama, we’re not living in 1215. The strengths of great families like ours is going. That’s just a fact.”

    The dowager continues:

    “Your great-grandchildren won’t thank you when the state is all-powerful because we didn’t fight.”

    Now we know why she cares so much about this one seemingly small issue.

    For her entire life, she has seen the state on the march, most especially during the Great War, and then the pressure of the state mounted against all the old estates, as they fall in status and wealth year after year, as if by some inexorable force of history.

    The dowager, on the other hand, sees not some invisible hand at work but a very visible hand, that of the state itself. In other words, she sees what nearly everyone else has missed.

    And whether she is right or wrong on the particular matter of this one hospital (and later history proves her correct), the larger point is precisely right.

    As the great fortunes of the nobility declined — the very structures that had not only carved out the rights of the people against the rulers and protected them for 800 years — the state was on the rise, threatening not only the nobles but the people too.

    What does all this have to do with the U.S. and the American Revolution? Read on.

    Corruption of the Great Families and the Future of Freedom

    New history likes to point out with great ire that the prime movers of rebels against the crown in 1776 were larger landowners and businessmen along with their families.

    They were the Founding families and the main influencers behind the Revolution, which Edmund Burke famously defended on grounds that it was not a real revolution but a revolt with a conservative intent. By this he meant that the Colonies were merely asserting rights forged in British political experience.

    And there is a point to that. The rights-based fervor that birthed the War of Independence gradually mutated into a Constitutional Convention 13 years later. The Articles of Confederation had no central government but the Constitution did. And the main controlling factions of the new government were indeed the landed families of the New World.

    The Bill of Rights, a thoroughly radical codification of the rights of the people and lower governments, was tacked on by the “Anti-Federalists” — again, a landed aristocracy — as a condition of ratification.

    The issue of slavery in the Colonies massively complicated the picture, of course, and became the main line of attack on the American system of federalism itself. The landed gentry of the South in particular always had grave doubts about Jefferson’s claims of universal and inviolable rights, fearing that eventually their ownership claims over human persons would be challenged, which indeed they were and less than a century after the Constitution was ratified.

    That aside, it remains true that the birth of American liberty rested with the U.S. version of the nobles, but also backed by the people at large. So the dowager’s history of British rights is not entirely inconsistent with the American story at least until recently.

    This has also been the prism with which to understand the broad outlines of the terms “left” and “right” in both the U.K. and the U.S. The “right” in a popular sense has represented mostly the established business interests (including the good parts and bad parts such as the munitions manufacturers) and tended to be the faction that defended the rights of commerce.

    The “left” has pushed the interests of labor unions, social welfare and minority populations, all of which happened also to be aligned with the interests of the state.

    Those categories seemed mostly settled as we entered the 21st century.

    But it was at this point that a titanic shift began to take place, especially after 9/11. The interests of the “great families” and the state began to align across the board (and not just on matters of war and peace). These family fortunes were no longer attached to Old World ideals but to technologies of control.

    The paradigmatic case is the Gates Foundation but the same holds true of Rockefeller, Koch, Johnson, Ford and Bezos. As the main funders of the World Health Organization and “scientific” research grants, they are the main forces behind the newest and largest threats to the freedom of the individual.

    These foundations built from capitalist wealth, and now fully controlled by bureaucrats loyal to statist causes, are on the wrong side of the crucial debates of our time. They fight not for the emancipation of the people but rather more control.

    With many sectors of the “left” naively signing up with the biomedical state and the interests of the pharmaceutical giants, and the “right” triangulated into going along, where is the party to defend the freedom of the individual? It is being squeezed out in an attack from both ends of the mainstream political spectrum.

    If the “great families” have fundamentally shifted their loyalties and interests, in both the U.S. and the U.K., and the mainline churches can no longer be relied upon to defend basic freedoms, we can and should expect a major realignment to take place.

    Marginalized groups drawn from the older versions of both right and left will need to mount a major and effective effort to reassert all the rights forged and earned over many centuries.

    These are completely new times and the COVID wars signal that turning point.

    Essentially, we need to revisit the Magna Carta itself to make it clear: Government has definite limits to its power. And by “government,” we cannot just mean the state but also its aligned interests, which are many but include the largest players in media, tech and corporate life.

    The groups that want to normalize the lockdowns and mandates — thinking of the COVID Crisis Group — can count on the financial support of the “great” families, and freely admit it. This is a problem completely unlike what freedom fighters have faced over the long course of modern history. It’s also why political alliances these days seem so fluid.

    This is ultimately what is behind the great political debates of our time. We are trying to make sense of who stands for what in times when nothing is as it seems.

    And there are some strange anomalies extant too. Elon Musk, for example, is among the richest Americans but seems to be a backer of free speech that the establishment hates. His social platform is the only one among the high-impact products that permit speech that contradicts regime priorities.

    Meanwhile his competitor in riches Jeff Bezos does not join him in this crusade.

    So too when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a scion of a “great family” — has broken with his clan to support the rights of the individual and a restoration of the freedoms we took for granted in the 20th century. His entry into the race for the Democratic nomination has disrupted our whole sense of where the “great families” stand on fundamental questions.

    The confusion even impacts political leaders like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Is Trump really a populist who is willing to stand up to the administrative state or is his appointed role to absorb the energies of the pro-freedom movement and once again turn them toward authoritarian ends, as he did with the lockdowns of 2020?

    And is Ron DeSantis a genuine champion of freedom who will fight lockdowns or is his appointed role to divide and weaken the Republican Party in advance of the nomination fight?

    This is the current fight within the GOP. It is a fight over who is telling the truth.

    The reason conspiracy theory has been unleashed as never before in our lifetimes is because nothing truly is what it seems to be. This traces to the reversal of alliances that have characterized the struggle for liberty over 800 years.

    We no longer have the barons and lords and we no longer have the great fortunes: They have thrown their lots in with the technocrats. Meanwhile, the supposed champions of the little guy are now fully aligned with the most powerful sectors of society, yielding a fake version of the left.

    Where does this leave us? We only have the intelligent bourgeoisie — products of the middle class that is currently under assault — that is well-read, clear-thinking, attached to alternative sources of news and only now in our post-lockdown world aware of the existential nature of the struggle we face.

    And their rallying cry is the same which has inspired the freedom movements of the past: the rights of individuals and families over the hegemon.

    If the dowager countess were around today, let there be no doubt as to where she would stand. She would stand with the freedom of the people against the controls of the state and its managers.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 19:00

  • Park Hotels Makes "Difficult" Decision To Stop Paying San Fran CMBS Loan, Citing "Concerns Over Street Conditions"
    Park Hotels Makes “Difficult” Decision To Stop Paying San Fran CMBS Loan, Citing “Concerns Over Street Conditions”

    Park Hotels & Resorts Inc. announced Monday that it ceased making payments on a $725 million CMBS loan which is scheduled to mature in November 2023. The loan is secured by two of its San Francisco hotels that it plans to remove from its portfolio.

    The hotels in focus are the 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square and the 1,024-room Parc 55 San Francisco. 

    “The Company intends to work in good faith with the loan’s servicers to determine the most effective path forward, which is expected to result in ultimate removal of these hotels from its portfolio,” Park wrote in a statement. 

    You won’t be shocked by Park CEO Thomas Baltimore’s statement on why it’s a “necessary decision to stop debt service payments on our San Francisco CMBS loan”: 

    “After much thought and consideration, we believe it is in the best interest for Park’s stockholders to materially reduce our current exposure to the San Francisco market. Now more than ever, we believe San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges – both old and new: record high office vacancy; concerns over street conditions; lower return to office than peer cities; and a weaker than expected citywide convention calendar through 2027 that will negatively impact business and leisure demand and will likely significantly reduce compression in the city for the foreseeable future.”

    Baltimore said removing the two hotels will “substantially improve our balance sheet and operating metrics.” 

    And there it is, a large real estate investment trust focused on hotel properties, with over 29,000 rooms in prime U.S. markets, abandoning San Francisco.

    Park’s announcement comes days after San Francisco’s Mayor, London Breed, makes major U-Turn to fund police after an explosion in crime has forced companies to leave the crime-ridden town.  

    Well done, Democrats. You’ve effectively transformed a once-thriving city into a hellhole. 

     

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 18:40

  • The US Desperately Needs A Political Brain Transplant
    The US Desperately Needs A Political Brain Transplant

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Euointelligence has an interesting take on why Biden Inflation Reduction Act will fail in its goal to re-industrialize the US.

    Don’t Re-Industrialize. Forge Alliances.

    Please consider Don’t Re-Industrialize. Forge Alliances, emphasis mine.

    There is an old saying in the world of manufacturing: once an industry leaves, it won’t come back. It’s the Humpty Dumpty of economics. This is why the Germans, who know a thing or two about industry, have been fighting deindustrialization so hard. The US and the UK gave up on industry decades ago, but the Biden administration wants it to return. The instrument of choice is last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, with its $370bn program of green subsidies. I fear the US underestimates the scale of the task.

    The intellectual force behind that strategy is Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s national security adviser. It is a sign of the times that foreign policy dictates the most important strategic economic policy shift in decades. Sullivan has cited the hollowing out of the US’s industrial base as one of the reasons behind the strategy. The other, of course, is China.

    The White House says the goal of the Inflation Reduction Act is to make “the nation more resilient to growing threats… and driving critical economic investments to historically underserved communities”. This describes the mélange of foreign and domestic policy goals quite well. It is rare in politics that one policy instrument achieves two policy goals. More often than not, it achieves neither.

    The scale of the problem is illustrated by the diminished role of industry. In the UK and the US, industry accounts for 17-18 per cent of the value added in the economy, according to the World Bank. In Germany and Japan, it is 27-29 per cent. In China it is almost 40 per cent.

    It takes years for an industrial company to build a production line and supply chains. This is why China is so good at it. Industry time-horizons correspond more closely to five-year plans than quarterly profit targets. Herein lies the first obstacle. The term of a US president, and their national security adviser, is short. Would an industrial firm be so reckless as to place a strategic bet on Donald Trump not getting back into office? Or that, if he did, he would continue Biden’s industrial policies? Or that even a future Democratic administration would?

    Sullivan is, of course, right in his diagnosis: the US industrial base has been hollowed out. Re-industrialization may be a laudable goal, but Sullivan’s strategy would require a political brain transplant. It would be a very long-term program. The way to start would be to build a bipartisan consensus. A subsidy program is not enough. And it should not be the start.

    I also fail to see how the US will achieve the second stated goal of the Inflation Reduction Act – to become more resilient and independent from China. China’s near monopoly in some rare earths and other raw materials remains. All the new US investment will do is reshuffle the higher nodes or points in the supply chains.

    A smarter policy response for the US would be to build strategic supply-chain and industrial partnerships in Africa and Latin America. This is what China has done, for example by taking a strategic stake in a Chilean lithium mine. Chile is the world’s second largest producer of lithium – a critical raw material in the production of electric batteries. China is also now Chile’s largest trading partner. As the US lost interest in Latin America, Chile has become increasingly dependent on China. 

    China is also diplomatically more active in Africa than the Europeans and the Americans. In building new strategic relationships for the benefit of Western economies, this is where I would start.

    What Sullivan’s comments tell me is that the US has lost more than just industry. It has lost its instinct for understanding what industry is all about.

    Trade Wars Fail

    Trump failed with Tariffs. Biden will fail with subsidies. Both are trade war tactics. 

    Biden may have better near-term results, but what will the next administration do? And the EU is hopping mad over Biden’s subsidies that are illegal under WTO.

    There is little long-term strategic thinking in the US with corporations looking only at beating the street on the next quarter, and politicians looking no further than the next election. 

    And whereas Biden weaponized the dollar, the rest of the world, including the EU, is not only resentful, but looking for ways of avoiding the long arm of US sanctions and mandates. 

    Dollar Weaponization In the Spotlight Again

    President Biden and the Fed crossed a line with dollar weaponization.

    For discussion, please see Dollar Weaponization Expands – FDIC Message to Foreign Depositors Is Don’t Trust the US

    Also see Central Banks Are Buying Gold at Record Pace, What Does That Mean for Inflation?

    Let’s return to a point that Eurointelligence made. “It is rare in politics that one policy instrument achieves two policy goals. More often than not, it achieves neither.”

    The Inflation Reduction Act is unlikely to make “the nation more resilient to growing threats” or “drive critical economic investments to historically underserved communities”.

    The IRA certainly failed to reduce inflation. If anything, it will increase inflation.

    Expect three policy failures because what we really need is a “political brain transplant.”

    Although the above is true, despite China’ ability to think long term. it still has not solved its dependence on massive property bubbles.

    There is a common denominator to all of these global woes: The fundamental problem everywhere is an unsound currency system that promotes bubbles as a means of growth. 

    For discussion, please see What’s the Fundamental Problem in China, the US, and the EU?

    *  *  *

    Please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 18:20

  • Scheme By California Woman Costs USPS $60 Million In Revenue
    Scheme By California Woman Costs USPS $60 Million In Revenue

    A California woman faces up to 10 years in prison over a counterfeit postage scheme that cost the USPS an estimated $60 million.

    Lijuan “Angela” Chen was arrested on May 24 after postal inspectors say she shipped nine million parcels over the course of six months using shipping labels belonging to a meter number which had been phased out in 2020, despite indicating that it had been purchased in 2023.

    Chen faces one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, and one count of use or possession of counterfeit postage per the filing, Insider reports.

    According to an inspector’s affidavit, the USPS would have lost $60 million in revenue due to the apparent scheme.

    He also carried out surveillance on a warehouse, watching a delivery truck travel to a USPS facility “where it unloaded twelve large cardboard boxes full of parcels containing counterfeit postage,” per the affidavit.

    Other inspectors saw one truck, which had been turned away from a distribution center for trying to ship mail with counterfeit postage, parked outside Chen’s house a day later, according to the court document. -Insider

    “The evidence obtained in the investigation shows that Chen is operating a business which provides shipping and postage services to businesses, including e-commerce vendors operating out of China, that seek discounted USPS rates for mailing their products within the United States,” reads the filing.

    “Multiple examinations conducted by USPS and USPIS staff have revealed that the vast majority of the postage used by Chen and her business to ship goods within the United States is counterfeit.”

    According to prosecutors, Chen’s husband first ran the scheme before traveling to China in 2019, after which she is believed to have continued it up to August 2022.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 18:00

  • The Strange Pandemic Of 'White' Disparagement
    The Strange Pandemic Of ‘White’ Disparagement

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    All of a sudden, the obsession with whites as a Satanic collective has become a national fad…

    One of the tenets of the early civil rights movement some 65 years ago was ending racial stereotyping.

    When Martin Luther King, Jr. called for emphasizing the “content of our character” over “the color of our skin,” the subtext was “stop judging people as a faceless collective on the basis of their superficial appearance and instead look to them as individuals with unique characters.”

    It is tragic that King’s plea for an integrated, assimilated society, in which race became incidental, not essential to our personas, has mostly been abandoned by the Left in favor of racial stereotyping, collective guilting, and scapegoating by race and gender.

    Indeed, many of the old Confederate pathologies—fixation on racial essence, obsession with genealogy, nullification of federal laws, states’ rights, and segregated spaces and ceremonies—are now rehabilitated by woke activists.

    In that larger landscape, the collective adjective and noun “white” now has also been redefined and mainstreamed as a pejorative to the point of banality.

    “White” followed by a string of subsequent oppressive nouns—“rage,” “supremacy,” “privilege”—has become a twitch on campus. Diversity, equity, and inclusion deans and provosts cannot write a memo, issue a communique, or sign a directive without a reference to “white” something or other.

    Like the mysterious omnipresence of transgenderism in popular culture, all of a sudden, the obsession with whites as a Satanic collective has become a national fad—a pet-rock or hula-hoop-like collective madness.

    Yet such an addiction remains bizarre in a variety of ways. Millions in the present are now to be libeled as oppressors by the contemporary self-described oppressed—supposedly for what some whites who are mostly now dead once did to now mostly dead others.

    Yet what does “white” really mean anymore? Is it an adjective or noun indicating color? Culture? Race? Ethnicity? Is white defined as three-quarters, one-half, or one-quarter paleness? Is it an overarching state of mind that encompasses both “Duck Dynasty” and “The West Wing”?

    Certainly, in a multiracial, intermarried nation, with 50 million residents not even born in America, the term is a construct that can mean almost anything and thus nothing much at all.

    Hispanics are often lumped in with other “marginalized” peoples as part of the vast diversity coalition. Yet most Latinos are indistinguishable from Italian-, Arab-, Greek- or Portuguese-Americans, who, in turn, are all usually considered part of the “white” majority. Does a mere accent mark or trilled “R” transmogrify a blue-eyed Argentinian-American into the preferred nonwhite, diversity collective?

    In our crazy racially categorized society, had George Zimmerman just adopted his maternal surname Mesa and Hispanicized George to Jorge, then a “Jorge Mesa” might not have been so easily demonized as what the New York Times slurred as a “white” Hispanic following his deadly confrontation with Trayvon Martin in 2012. 

    The controversial City University of New York firebrand and graduation speaker Fatima Mousa Mohammed recently railed against capitalism, Zionism, Israel—and, of course, “white supremacy.” Yet she herself is whiter than white. She is now an elite with a law degree. Is she then a beneficiary of “white privilege”? Or do her radical politics trump skin color and earn her exemption?

    Is a snarly, divisive Joe Biden, barking at the moon about “ultra-MAGA” and “semi-fascist” white monsters, then, not a purveyor and beneficiary of white supremacy by virtue of his woke politics?

    I know a lot of white mechanics, forklift drivers, and assembly workers. I have never heard one employ one of Biden’s racial putdowns like “boy” or “junkie.” Do they enjoy white privilege in some way the Biden family consortium does not—despite Joe’s past fulsome praise of iconic segregationists or his Corn-Pop fables of black youth petting his golden hairs on his sun-tanned white legs, or Hunter’s taboos about dating Asian women?

    “The View’s” Sonny Hostin has created a mini-career in imaging all the ways in which she can smear “white” women as demonic (“White women, in particular, want to protect this patriarchy”) as she thinks up new Hitlerian gas metaphors of dehumanization, such as white women resembling “roaches voting for Raid.”

    When the media wishes to attack black conservatives like Larry Elder, it now can call them “white supremacists.” When it wishes to warp the news for its woke agendas, it assures us that a Latino mass-murderer was a “white supremacist” and then, in Pavlovian fashion, academics follow with essays assuring us that their “research” proves Hispanics too can be white supremacists.

    The creation of false racial identities is an accurate touchstone of perceived collective racialized privilege. “Passing” for white in the racist days of Jim Crow reflected a means of escaping racist segregation and discrimination for blacks.

    Now the increasing trend of whites seeking to pass for nonwhites—Elizabeth Warren, Ward Churchill, Rachel Dolezal—reflects a self-interested and careerist assessment that nonwhite status is advantageous.

    In college admissions, are applicants more likely to massage a non-white or white identity for perceived advantage? Is the racist ossified “one-drop rule” or “one-sixteenth” genealogy now rebooted as helpful proof of proving white or nonwhite heritage?

    Then we come to the absurdity of lumping together 330 million diverse Americans, with ancestries that are often quite antithetical—Serbians and Albanians, Turks and Armenians, Israelis and Syrians, Germans and French. Are all these ancient antagonists reduced now to white automatons of a sinister collective borg?

    Arrive as an immigrant from Hungary or Estonia, and—presto!—you are culpable for creating supposed monsters of the past like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, whose statues must be toppled or defaced? Arrive the same day from Oaxaca and you are somehow exempt from such reparatory burdens?

    Immigration, at least, is immune from the academic perversion of research, and simply reflects realities on the ground. Millions of immigrants instinctively vote with their feet. We are told the U.S. current population is 67 percent to 70 percent “white” while yearly immigrants, legal and illegal, may total upwards of 90 percent nonwhite.

    But how is this paradox possible? Given the loud global warnings about “white rage” and “white supremacy,” why would millions of nonwhites risk their lives to reach a country where they would be assured of being subservient to “white privilege”?

    Can it instead be true that they simply do not believe what media and political elites tell them, given they have learned from prior immigrants that far from being at risk, they will have opportunities impossible in their native countries?

    Do not new arrivals risk their lives to enter the United States because they rightly assume that a so-called white majority country strangely, unlike their own tribal homelands in China or Mexico, does not fixate on race but instead encourages those who do not look like the majority to join their commonwealth—in a way the Mexican Constitution, for example, traditionally did not?

    Class apparently now means nothing. Does the white mechanic in Provo supposedly think like the Pelosi family—as a fellow “white” person?

    Are Barack Obama’s “clingers,” Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” and “irredeemables,” and Joe Biden’s “semi-fascists,” “Ultra-MAGAs,” “dregs,” and “chumps” all of the same mentality? Do they share the same values as those embraced by Hunter Biden, Jane Fonda, and Adam Schiff, by virtue of some mystical bonds of whiteness?

    Where are the data to support the charge of imperious whiteness? Do so-called raging whites commit hate crimes in numbers greater than their demographics?

    In fact, they are underrepresented.

    Do purported whites hunt down people of color as if we are all living in 1920s rural Mississippi?

    In fact, in relatively rare interracial violent crime, whites are up to 10 times more likely to be victims of black- or Hispanic-perpetrated violence than agents themselves of interracial assault.

    Do white supremacists send poor people of color abroad, as often argued, to die in rich white men’s wars?

    In fact, white males died in Iraq and Afghanistan at twice their numbers in the general population. Is that asymmetry proof of what Mark Milley and Lloyd Austin pontificated about in fixating on white privilege?

    How do we adjudicate or define “proportionate representation”? What is disproportionate?

    Would it be the more than 70 percent of African Americans in many professional sports at six times their percentages of the population? Or perhaps the current admission statistics of the incoming class at Stanford University, where the university boasts that just 22 percent of its 2026 class is so-called white?

    Is it white privilege, rage, or supremacy that explains why seven of the current 25 cabinet and cabinet-level secretaries of the U.S. government are heterosexual white males? Does white privilege reveal why Asian Americans, on average, enjoy an annual median household income some $25,000 higher than their white counterparts?

    Are whites, by virtue of their supposed privileged caste, immune from suicide? In fact, the so-called white suicide rate is more than double the rate of blacks and Hispanics.

    Do supremacy and privilege explain why two-thirds of the annual opioid overdose deaths are among whites?

    Perhaps to substantiate the boilerplate of “white supremacy” and “white rage,” we might look to efforts at retro-segregation?

    Are privileged whites insisting on white-only college graduations? Perhaps they are demanding set-aside spaces on campuses, where they feel “safer” and can enjoy racial affinities and solidarity by excluding others? In fact, there are racially segregated spaces on campuses, but they tend to exclude whites.

    Perhaps the Left means white supremacy is a euphemism for a return to segregated housing and redlined neighborhoods. In fact, there are racially segregated dorms on campuses, the so-called “theme houses,” but again these were demanded by nonwhites.

    We are told that it is not safe for the diverse to be around white people, given their supposed violent proclivities. But that certainly seems not to be the case for our elites. The Obamas often lecture the country on housing discrimination and the historic efforts of whites to self-congregate and exclude. But the ex-president owns four expensive homes, in Kalorama D.C., Martha’s Vineyard, Hawaii, and Chicago. Yet he is least likely to reside in his richly diverse Chicago neighborhood and apparently feels more at home with the mostly white neighbors of his other three estates.

    Indeed, some of the most severe critics of “white privilege” and “white rage” are themselves ensconced in white neighborhoods, such as the Duchess of Sussex or LeBron James. When Oprah Winfrey damns white supremacy in graduation speeches, is her subtext a snarl at her fellow billionaire neighbors in Montecito?

    So what is going on with the contemporary fixation on white, white, white?

    Why are there so many Duke Lacrosse, Covington kids, Tawana Brawley, and Jussie Smollett cases, as if the dearth of white oppressors and the multitude of would-be oppressed requires the fabrication of so-called white hate crimes?

    Why does Joe Biden lecture the country on its supposedly greatest terrorist threat of “white supremacy”—this from the most racialist president of the modern era, who sets himself up as the judge of who is and who “ain’t black”?

    This rebooted white collective stereotype seems to be the obsession of two general groups. One cadre is the elite professional, left-wing whites. By any definition of income and status, its members are quite blessed and privileged. For them, voicing the new white pejorative is a sort of psychological mechanism that excuses their own guilt-ridden privilege, by fobbing purported toxic “whiteness” onto an amorphous “semi-fascist” other, while virtue signaling they are not like “them.”

    “Them,” of course, are those who live and work in places like East Palestine, Ohio, and who have zero privilege but, by the Obama-Clinton-Biden standards, are culturally and socially deplorable.

    Such “white rage” and “white supremacist” mantras are also careerist cues that signal, as with party membership of the old Soviet nomenklatura, that they are correct and now audited for raises, promotions, and rewards. 

    The second group is composed of the wealthy, left-wing minority elites in politics, media, entertainment, sports, and government service. For the Al Sharptons and “squad” members of the world, damning “white, white, white” bogeymen alleviates them of any painful analysis of inequality, such as the role of endemic illegitimacy and absent fathers in nearly ensuring a lack of parity. It is hard work to buck the teachers’ unions and set up K-12 charter schools in the inner city that focus on math, science, and languages to ensure parity. But it is easy and cheap—and far more lucrative—to blast the SAT test as “racist” and demand reparative admissions to Yale or Harvard.

    For the racialist careerist, the less racism there is to find, all the more essential it is to root it out somehow, somewhere. So, here arrives a new genre of manufactured hate crimes, whose logic is “even if it did not happen, it reminds us that it could have happened.”

    The dearth of actual racism also demands a new set of adjectives that serve as something like sophisticated detectors to discover otherwise invisible natural gas fumes. The adjective “systemic” means only the select can now spot racism. Like air, it is everywhere but invisible and thus requires battalions of diversity, equity, and inclusion inspectors to use their training to expose it in the common atmosphere.

    “Microaggressions” exist as a tacit admission there are no aggressions as we commonly define them. No matter—there are still hints that there might be some racial aggression, once experts redefine words and gestures to ferret out micro-racists in our midst.

    Where does this all lead?

    We are wasting trillions of dollars in capital, labor, and time in tribal cannibalism as our friends abroad watch in horror, and our enemies savor our decline into collective suicide—while we sink into debt, our cities turn medieval, our border disappears, our criminal justice system collapses, and our military chases its tail.

    We know from history the ultimate destination of tribal chauvinism, and it is not pretty. Once a society retribalizes, it descends into a Hobbesian war of all against all. Everyone eventually seeks out or manufactures a tribal identity for self-protection. Tribalism operates on the principles of proliferation: if a neighboring nation goes nuclear, then everyone in the neighborhood must too.

    Unless some passengers on our runaway train force our engineers to hit the brakes, we are headed over the cliff into Yugoslavia.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 06/05/2023 – 17:40

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